


Lycanthropy::HIV

by slashaholic666 (queerlybeloved777)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Essays, HIV/AIDS, Queer History, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerlybeloved777/pseuds/slashaholic666
Summary: While in the research stage for a fic with an HIV+ character, I dug into the inconsistencies of lycanthropy standing in for HIV.
Kudos: 8





	Lycanthropy::HIV

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on tumblr [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20191126212504/https://bonesandblood-sunandmoon.tumblr.com/post/186152995797/lycanthropyhiv) on July 8th, 2019. While there have been rumors and teasing that tumblr’s going to go under practically any year now, I don’t want to lose this post in case anything actually does happen to tumblr.
> 
> Please note that this was not originally written for a class, so it is not a ‘properly formatted’ essay.

I’m certainly not the first person to approach this topic, but in the process of writing an HP fic with an HIV+ character, I’m really being forced to look at the world building of lycanthropy in comparison to HIV.

Just a sampling of other articles:

  * [Remus Lupin and the stigmatised illness: why lycanthropy is not a good metaphor for HIV/AIDS [article link]](https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2016/09/remus-lupin-and-stigmatised-illness-why-lycanthropy-not-good-metaphor-hivaids) \- Goes into Lupin as the “good outlier” compared to other werewolves.
  * [Dear JK Rowling: Being a Werewolf Is Not Like Having HIV [article link]](https://www.thebody.com/article/dear-jk-rowling-being-a-werewolf-not-like-hiv) from TheBody, an HIV/AIDS resource - Goes into the queercoding and problem with isolation being a tactic to manage werewolves, among other points.



While it’s easier to google ‘HIV and lycanthropy’ and get takes like this, I can’t say it’s an example of everyone being in agreement. Some of the more astute fans were able to make a connection during PoA when it was just another element of Lupin’s queercoding, and I vaguely remember a ‘foot in the door’ attitude since this was supposed to be a YA series started in the late 1990s. (But, well, JKR was JKR, and some story elements don’t age well.)

##### #1: Historical Presence

Lycanthropy: In universe, there’s no origin werewolf, but the wiki entry includes a reference to the Werewolf Code of Conduct of 1637 and werewolves wanting to create their own societies, which isn’t terribly surprising for a population that’s been around for at least 350 years, if not longer [[Werewolf HP Wiki link](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Werewolf)].

HIV: Testing old tissue and blood samples and virus sequencing has been able to trace a likely origin for the first non-human to human virus transmission (circa 1910), the emergence of strains that could pass from human to human (1910 - 1950), and some people who died prior to the 1980s from secondary infections brought on by AIDS [[Timeline of early HIV/AIDS cases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_early_HIV/AIDS_cases); [Transmission from non-humans to humans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#Transmission_from_non-humans_to_humans); and [Emergence of HIV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#Emergence)]. However, at the height of the epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, this was not common knowledge, and I wouldn’t expect an HIV+ character to know this within a story or think HIV wasn’t a ‘new’ thing.

##### #2: Transmission Method

Lycanthropy: Being a werewolf is supposedly only possible via being bitten by a werewolf in their wolf form, while an injury from a werewolf in their human form creates “lupine tendencies like a fondness for rare meat” without the ability to transform into a wolf form [[Werewolf HP Wiki link](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Werewolf)]. (Because Bill’s attack from an untransformed Greyback is relatively late in terms of how long fans were writing about werewolves, some continue to ignore that any side effects result from human form injuries, like scratching and biting, and/or human saliva because it retroactively creates issues for some foreplay and sex scenes.)

Prior to Bill’s attack, canon created an impression that wolf form saliva meeting human blood is the only means of transmission so human form blood, saliva, and other bodily fluids were ‘safe’, which removed the sexually transmitted infection aspect and stigma. There was also an impression that scratching and the resulting facial scarring were not the primary means of infection, but after Bill’s attack which primarily featured human form scratching, canon became a little less clear on the exact mechanism that results in lycanthropy. (Only wolf form saliva? Both human and wolf form saliva? Something transferred into the bloodstream via scratches that isn’t saliva?)

HIV: According to CDC numbers from 2015, spitting and biting have a “negligible” risk (technically possible but unlikely and not well documented) [[CDC HIV Risk Behaviors](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/estimates/riskbehaviors.html)]. Generally, the risk is so low that spit swapping varieties of kissing are included under myth busting questions about how HIV isn’t spread.

HIV is spread through certain bodily fluids - blood, semen (cum), pre-seminal fluid (pre-cum), rectal fluids, vaginal fluids, and breast milk - coming into contact with mucous membranes, damaged tissue (ex. open cut), or being directly injected into the bloodstream via needle or syringe [[CDC HIV Transmission](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/transmission.html)]. While sexual activity is not the only means of transmission, it is unavoidably a well known one that factors into how people reacted to HIV and AIDS.

##### #3: Transmission Rate

Lycanthropy: As far as we know, the transmission rate from a wolf form bite is 100%. It’s only with Greyback’s human form attack on Bill that there’s discussion of not all werewolf attacks resulting in passing on lycanthropy, but that’s transferring the analogy about variable transmission rates for HIV from ‘wolf form bite’ to a general ‘attack’. There’s not really a lycan version of an undetectable viral load in this analogy.

HIV: Fun fact, this does not have a 100% transmission rate. I can’t give you the ole razzle dazzle with a bunch of math because there are different high/medium/low risk activities, ways to reduce transmission ([PrEP](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/prep.html) is pre-exposure, [PEP](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/pep.html) is post-exposure), and variables that mean you are not guaranteed to get HIV from the same activity every single time, particularly if you factor in an undetectable viral load. Granted, some elements of this weren’t known in the 1990s, but given that JKR wasn’t writing and releasing her books then, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for some of this nuance to be given consideration.

##### #4: Management via Medication

Lycanthropy: The expensive ingredients and difficult brewing instructions for Wolfsbane Potion do work within this analogy for difficulty affording and accessing early antiretroviral therapy (ART). This is part of how lycanthropy could get interpreted as a metaphor for HIV by readers before JKR weighed in, but I must admit that her world building to give lycanthropy at least a 350 year history makes it harder to understand Wolfsbane Potion only getting invented in the 1970s. The framing of Remus missing one dose just one month in PoA also sets up an unsettling “if you miss one dose, you are in fact a danger to everyone” scenario.

HIV: This is an area where it takes some careful phrasing with search terms because today’s options for medicine are not exactly the same as what would’ve been available in the 1990s. Generally speaking, the combination options that offer two or three medicines in one pill sound like they may have been more likely to be separate, and some of the side effects were different (more likely to be more severe when it came to effects on the liver, unless I’m misinterpreting). Most sound like they were once or twice a day, everyday prescriptions, and it was likely you would need various supplements and ‘not really treating the HIV but still needed’ other pills. However, I haven’t tried to definitively track the minutiae of differences in medication between then and now, so I must admit that I have a general impression more so than exact details. The biggest component in relation to the lycanthropy aspect is that it takes more than one missed dose to undo the effects of being medication compliant.

##### #5: Management via Isolation

Lycanthropy: Because Wolfsbane Potion is more literally a sedative that just reduces a wolf wanting to attack humans, really the “best medicine” is isolation. It comes across as an easy solution since the Shrieking Shack was devised while Remus was at school before Wolfsbane Potion was invented, but it feeds the encouragement of social isolation for werewolves in their human form, particularly those too poor to access the Wolfsbane Potion. (Hint: Probably the majority.)

HIV: There’s a bit of a history with AIDS patients and isolation, but I must admit that I’m unsure if it’s more USA specific than a universal experience. Remember how no one wanted to visit the wizard who had just been bitten in OotP while Arthur was in St. Mungo’s over the holidays? Well, magnify that, so the wizard wasn’t able to be on the same floor as non-lycans, staff would avoid bringing food and interacting, and he might have to be sent to a separate facility that only catered to lycans.

At any rate, a fair amount of people liked the idea of isolation with HIV+ people because they wanted to avoid getting HIV and had inaccurate ideas of how that happened (breathing the same air, social touching, touching an object after an HIV+ person, etc.), so someone should’ve reconsidered how isolation was used for werewolves.

##### #6: Life Outcome

Lycanthropy: From the sounds of it, when Greyback isn’t involved in an intentional death, you’ll live but hate yourself, and society will hate you because they somehow still think you’ll turn people as a human even after over 350 years of knowing about werewolves. Plus, the wiki cites (from a page that used to be on Pottermore) “tragic tales are told of knowing victims begging for death rather than becoming werewolves” [[Werewolf HP Wiki link](https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Werewolf)].

There’s really no beating around the bush - that sounds incredibly depressing. For fuck’s sake, there’s no sense of community and making the best of your life even if it is different now that might sound like there’s still a chance to have a life. (Greyback having an underground society of werewolves who hate the Wizarding world because they’re hated so much isn’t exactly a positive example of community, by the way.) The main canon example of werewolf life expectancy (Remus lived 33 years after infection) doesn’t provide a judge of all werewolves when Wizarding Wars have also factored into reduced life expectancy.

HIV: Admittedly, it depends on when you’re writing about getting a diagnosis. The height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and into the 1990s is not the same as the late 1990s and early 2000s or the present day (2019). Another factor is the particular diagnosis of Stage 1 (acute HIV; the first few weeks of infection), Stage 2 (chronic HIV, which can be asymptomatic), or Stage 3 (AIDS). A person who doesn’t seek out ART could be at Stage 2 for about 10 years and Stage 3 for another three years, but that’s not a guarantee or reflective of life expectancy while on medication [[The Stages of HIV Infection](https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/understanding-hiv-aids/fact-sheets/19/46/the-stages-of-hiv-infection)].

##### #7: Inheritability (or Transmission to Offspring)

Lycanthropy: Strictly speaking, it takes a bite from the werewolf parent in wolf form for a child to acquire their parent’s lycanthropy. However, the concern and “this is new so no one knows” quality of Tonks’ pregnancy created an air of uncertainty that means some fans attribute Teddy not being a werewolf to Tonks being a Metamorphmagus and/or lycanthropy only being transmitted to the child if the pregnant person is infected.

Bizarrely, the Werewolf Wiki claims Teddy Lupin is the only known case of a werewolf having a child in human form, which doesn’t sound plausible when werewolves have been around for over 350 years and, y’know, monsterfuckers exist. (Yes, this is a YA series and getting into the nitty gritty would be inappropriate for the genre, but JKR specifically planned out Teddy Lupin, so a little critical thinking about werewolf/human is necessary.)

HIV: I must admit most resources turning up are within the last few years and may not be 100% transferable to the 1990s, but it is certainly possible to have an HIV- child if the sperm providing person is HIV+ by reducing the risk of transmission to the egg providing person, who faces a higher risk of transmission to the child [[HIV and Family Planning](https://www.poz.com/basics/hiv-basics/hiv-family-planning)]. It’s not a guarantee that a child will acquire HIV if the person carrying the pregnancy is HIV+, but exposure to blood during delivery and breastfeeding do carry a risk.

(I suggest that link provided earlier for more information in this area because I don’t know much about family planning options other than IVF being available in the early 1990s.) I must admit that using this element of transmission in the metaphor with lycanthropy would keep every instance from coming across as “intentional bite from monster”, and having some sort of rules for whether a child could have lycanthropy would come across as more purposeful world building than a slapstick view that Teddy Lupin is the only known case.

##### #8: Good Exception versus Bad Actually Dangerous Group

Lycanthropy: Of course the anti-lycan bias and discrimination doesn’t make sense when it’s Remus Lupin, but it’s a totally different story with Greyback, who climbed into Remus’ bedroom via a window and bit him as a child (Predatory Gay vibes anyone, plus a side of Sexual Deviancy with some of his other lines at women). Most werewolves align with the Dark Side and Greyback wants to turn as many children as possible in order to outnumber the Wizarding world and take over (Older Predatory Gay wants to “recruit” our Good ~~Het~~ Normal Children anyone?).

HIV: The first example that I can think of is admittedly an example of a child in the US who needed a blood transfusion acquiring HIV. Instead of being an example of HIV being transmitted via blood and not synonymous with gay sex, [Ryan White](https://hab.hrsa.gov/about-ryan-white-hivaids-program/who-was-ryan-white) was a virtuous exception to ‘God is punishing the gays’ narrative. (This isn’t to say that this is exactly how the White family presented their son’s AIDS diagnosis, but it does factor into how other people used this case and how people remember the comparison between a hemophiliac child ‘who didn’t do anything to deserve this’ and ‘the people who did do something to deserve this’.)

##### #9: The Elephant in the Room

Lycanthropy: A metaphor for HIV, a disease that impacted queer communities and is still incredibly associated with queer men by some people, carries an element of queercoding. While HIV is transmitted through various bodily fluids and does not require sexual activity, there’s still an association with receptive anal sex, which is associated with queer men. Depending on where you live in the 2000s, this perception of who is more likely to be HIV+ may not be queer men, but I can’t make guaranteed statements about the 1990s. Admittedly, some of this may be US heavy, but it’s certainly an element of HIV’s historical context that a writer has to face when writing a metaphor for HIV. Whether JKR likes it or not, this is a part of why Remus has been interpreted as a queer character and shipped with other men by fans.

HIV: While sexual activity is not the only way to transmit the virus, it is indeed a factor of how people reacted to those who were HIV+, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. It intersects with other social attitudes around sex education (who tells the teens about sex when, talking with other adults about sex, condom usage and access), sex work, drug use (particularly if needles are shared), and the “you may not like it, but it’s there” areas of bathhouses / hooking up and BDSM in queer history. (Loads of the people doing kink were queer. Sex is not mandatory but can happen in a scene. Some kinky activities don’t look like “penis going into something” sex, but bodily fluids can still be present for potential sharing, including blood.) It’s an overlapping area of homophobia, biphobia, and other queerphobia with the association of a sexually transmitted virus meaning sexual deviancy sort of connection. Werewolves don’t have to check off these boxes like some sort of prerequisite list, but some of this baggage tags along when writing a metaphor for HIV, particularly when a teacher loses his job because he can’t be around the children for their safety.

##### #10: Government Action

Lycanthropy: No offense, but if actual irl Great Britain managed to hunt their native wolf population to extinction by the 1700s, if not earlier in some places [[History of Wolves in the UK](https://wolves.live/the-history-of-wolves-in-the-uk/)], I don’t see how the Wizarding world didn’t do that well before the 1990s with werewolves through sheer indifference to stopping Muggle hunters. Full offense, but I don’t trust a government that has a Werewolf Registry and a Werewolf Capture Unit to not also have ulterior motives around forced sterilization (whether by design or indifference to wolf forms being sterilized), designated living areas “to protect others”, surveillance measures (because some werewolves hate the Wizarding world and are ‘anti-Ministry’), and attempted control of that population.

There are plenty of seeds for some serious anti-lycan bias and discrimination that would in fact mirror how different ethnic, racial, and religious groups have been treated if a writer wanted werewolves to face that in a magical universe, especially if werewolves have been around and hated for over 350 years. This is an area where the historical presence works against the metaphor because, as one example, there would be an expectation that employment discrimination like the bill passed after Remus left Hogwarts would already be in place. If lycanthropy is an established stigmatised chronic condition, keep that history in mind during world building. If lycanthropy is a stand-in for HIV, keep the relative ‘newness’ for a story set in the 1990s in mind.

According to the Werewolf Wiki, the Werewolf Registry is by volunteer basis so it’s not up to date, but that sounds like a cop-out when the Ministry of Magic can track the births of magical children, know when an underage wix performs magic, and has all kinds of literal magic that one can track and monitor with. Yeah, they were comically bad at finding Azkaban escapees, but in the hands of someone wanting to flex government surveillance abilities, you can start at microchipping and work from there. (How many people would bat an eye at a wolf getting a microchip in the 1990s, particularly if the Ministry was involved in some sort of ‘we’ll eventually share with the Muggles’ reserve?)

HIV: I must admit this is an area where I would have to carefully make sure I was looking into UK specific information because not every administration in every country took a silence and indifference route (or fed into certain religious arguments). Granted, the social stigma that leads to employment and housing discrimination that leads to underemployment, unemployment, and living in poverty that are attributed to werewolves certainly isn’t a stretch in the metaphor.

##### Conclusion

Writing lycanthropy as a metaphor for HIV resulted in some areas of successful interpretation by readers, but I can’t say I’m surprised that fans often tweak werewolf canon to address holes in the metaphor. I don’t have every area mapped out in the exact details of difference here, but overall, I don’t think it’s going to be impossibly difficult to delineate HIV-as-HIV in this fic as separate from lycanthropy. One element that doesn’t have an irl parallel (and can’t be factored into the metaphor) is that by not actually including HIV in the Wizarding world, canon doesn’t provide a blueprint for addressing whether certain viruses or diseases ‘originate’ from Muggles and thus feeds into anti-Muggle bias. Not that this excuses serophobia, but it would undoubtedly affect Ministerial response to HIV+ wixen (ex. the Wizarding version of the NHS won’t cover ART because “that only happens to Muggles”).

**Author's Note:**

> Original ending disclaimer on the tumblr post: I must admit that I am not an expert on this topic, and there’s no pressure to signal boost this post or completely throw out the lycanthropy as HIV metaphor. It’s fine if followers elect to ignore me poking at world building / expansion for a particular fic.


End file.
